1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to a method and apparatus for directing a telephone station and, more particularly, to an in-bound call directed telephone station and a method of directing a telephone station based on an in-bound call.
2. Description of the Background
Telephone stations, and in particular, cellular telephone stations, normally offer a variety of telephone features. These features may include, for example, return call. However, during normal operation of the telephone, most of such features are accessible only to the person in possession of the telephone, and not to an in-bound caller.
It is known in the art that an in-bound caller can call a telephone station and access messages, or change the manner of receiving messages. However, such accessing is passive, and does not require any action on the part of the telephone station being called to change its function. Further, such accessing is based on information entered during the call, after the telephone station has answered the call, rather than the information of the in-bound call itself. Thus, in order to activate a feature of the telephone, such as return call, from a remote location using the prior art, the telephone would have to actively change its function by answering the call, thereby interrupting operation of the telephone, and receiving information entered by the remote caller.
Therefore, the need exists for a telephone station and method that offers remote access to change the features of the telephone station based on information contained in the origination of an in-bound call.